When Kristin Monje began working at the Block Island School 32 years ago, the most advanced technology in the building was an overhead projector.
Monje remembers having to run a telephone line across a room to connect to the internet through a dial-up system. Now, with installation of a broadband network, the school provides laptop computers to students, giving them access to online instructional programs so they can do things they couldn’t do before.
“Having broadband in the school was as transformative as having actual internet,” said Monje, who has served as principal for nine years, while also sitting on the town of New Shoreham’s Broadband Committee.
Block Island received broadband for its anchor institutions in 2019 via optical fibers embedded in a 20-mile-long subsea cable that connects the Block Island Wind Farm to the electrical grid on the mainland.
But while New Shoreham has now moved on to expanding its town-owned broadband network to its residents, similar efforts in mainland Rhode Island are dormant.
Officials say Rhode Island’s broadband aspirations were quashed in 2015 when federal funds to maintain a broadband office dried up. The state used a Broadband Technology Opportunities Program grant in 2010 to fund office personnel as a center of coordination at the R.I. Department of Administration.
Now there’s been a renewed push to get broadband on the state’s radar, particularly because the $1 trillion federal infrastructure bill passed by the U.S. Senate on Aug. 10 sets aside billions for extending broadband networks. It still needs House approval.
‘The speeds needed to reach the end user are increasing every day.’
DAVID MARBLE, OSHEAN Inc. CEO and president
Broadband offers high-speed, high-capacity networks that are growing more vital as many aspects of daily life are being influenced by digital transformation, according to David Marble, CEO and president of OSHEAN Inc., a North Kingstown nonprofit advocating for the creation of a broadband network that’s affordable to the state’s residents and businesses.
“Technology continues its breakneck pace of innovation, which will drive further development of the infrastructure of our networks,” Marble said. “The speeds needed to reach the end user are increasing every day.”
Marble said the state lacks a coordinated effort to build a sustainable broadband network, and it may be a primary hurdle to receiving federal funding.
Marble said the state needs to reconstitute its broadband office to achieve the goal of installing a statewide network.
Marble said that in 2010 OSHEAN built the state’s community anchor institution broadband network utilizing $32 million of federal funding from the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program. As part of that project, fiber optic cables were connected to hospitals, public safety buildings, schools and libraries.
With that “middle mile” in place, the next step is to bring optic fibers to people’s homes and to businesses.
In the most recent General Assembly session, Rep. Deborah L. Ruggiero, D-Jamestown, chair of the House Innovation, Internet, and Technology Committee, sponsored legislation that would have created a broadband council and established a broadband coordinator within the R.I. Commerce Corp. The measure passed the House but died in the Senate.
Ruggiero was scheduled to meet with Gov. Daniel J. McKee this month to discuss the future of broadband. Rhode Island is one of only two states that does not have a broadband coordinator or any governance around broadband technology, she said.
Meanwhile, Block Island moves ahead with broadband expansion.
When National Grid’s subsea cable landed on Block Island on June 24, 2016, it contained eight strands of fiber optic cables, the key to the island’s quest for much-needed broadband service. Block Island is well known by its residents and visitors for having spotty cellphone and internet service.
When National Grid was planning to install the subsea cable in 2016, the plan to include optical fibers for broadband communications appealed to New Shoreham officials. They only requested a $350,000 fee for the easement at the beach where it was installed.
In July 2020, the town voters authorized borrowing $8 million to fund the work to provide its citizens with broadband access. The town is constructing a publicly owned fiber-to-the-home broadband network.
Amy Land, New Shoreham’s finance director, said lack of a coordinated statewide broadband effort has been a hurdle. The town has had to navigate on its own, relying on consultants, advisers and the town’s Broadband Committee.
The cable that provides broadband to Block Island was connected to OSHEAN’s “middle mile” network.
“Later this year, residents and businesses will officially subscribe for internet service,” Land said.
The town-run network will offer three levels of service: basic, moderate, or heavy, with the cost to subscribe ranging from $57.95 to $71.95 per month.
Cassius Shuman is a PBN staff writer. Email him at Shuman@PBN.com.
Agree 100%! RI will quickly be left on the wrong side of the new “digital divide” without access to affordable, resilient, and reliable broadband access.
The superior transmission medium for broadband is via fiber optic cables, which New Shoreham is building to every premises. The signals are not subject to electromagnetic interference and travel long distances without requiring signal regeneration. Fiber infrastructure is “future proof” as capacity is seamlessly upgraded via swapping end-point electronics.
I encourage everyone to review the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s white paper, “Why Fiber is a Superior Medium for 21st Century Broadband.”
In closing, “If it’s not fiber, it’s not broadband” (and it is not even close).
-Theodore Pietz